


(Brothers Break Bones) But You're Asking for Forgiveness

by ThePackWantstheD



Series: No Matter Where You Are [5]
Category: Hockey RPF
Genre: Domestic Fluff, Established Relationship, Friendship, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-25
Updated: 2016-11-25
Packaged: 2018-09-02 04:03:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,700
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8650615
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ThePackWantstheD/pseuds/ThePackWantstheD
Summary: "Claude," he said, voice dark and unamused. Before Claude could respond to the clear accusation in Brayden's voice, he continued, "I just don't understand why you would get back with him. Much less why you would go further then that and marry him. I know you told me that it wasn't any of my business because I didn't see everything, but the stuff I saw was so fucking bad Claude. You were so fucking angry and when you weren't angry you were just so sad. Do you have any idea how many nights I spent with headphones in because I couldn't listen to you argue with him or spend one more second listening to you cry? You're one of my best friends and he treated you like shit and then you went and married him. I just can't wrap my head around why you would want to be with someone who had hurt you like that. Not just emotionally, but physically! He could have ended your career."





	

Claude stood in the Wells Fargo Center's staff parking lot. His was hovering just by his drivers side door with his keys gripped loosely in his fingers. When he'd gotten out of practice, he'd found that Sidney had messaged him and he'd spent the walk out to the parking lot answering him.

Sidney had the weekend off, one of the few weekends he would get off this season, so he was lying around Claude's condo while Claude was at practice. Sidney wasn't usually the type of person to lie around, but every player in the league worked their bodies to the bone during the season and Sidney was one of the worst offenders. So when Sidney did have a break during the season, Sidney was a lot more inclined to lie around doing nothing than he was to lie around any other time of the year.

So Claude wasn't really surprised that Sidney hadn't dragged himself out of bed and out into the kitchen until it was almost two o'clock. He was kind of surprised that Sidney wanted him to go grocery shopping with him, Sidney usually went by himself so that Claude couldn't toss boxes of Reese's Peanut Butter puffs or ten different types of sliced cheese into the cart, but he figured Sidney was mostly inviting him along so he wouldn't have to carry the groceries to the car.

"G! Hey, you're still here!"

Looking away from his phone and over his shoulder, Claude found a collection of his teammates walking out into the parking lot. Voracek had been the one one to speak, accent thick and one hand lifted in greeting. Simmonds and Schenn walked on either side of him. Simmonds had a small amused smile on his lips and Schenn was leaned back to talk to Simmonds behind Voracek's back.

"Hey," Claude said, flashing a smile at his friends. His phone buzzed in his hand, so he glanced down to see what Sidney had answered before dropping it into his pocket. He could send Sidney an answer once he was on his way out.

"I didn't think you'd still be here," Simmonds said. "You hauled ass out of the locker room. I figured you had somewhere to be."

"Not really," Claude answered, shrugging one shoulder. He'd been in a hurry because he didn't want to lag around wasting any of the time he had with Sidney. He had the entire season to chirp the rookies or joke around with Del Zotto and Raffl. He only had a weekend before Sidney had to be back in Pittsburgh.

"If you don't have anywhere to be, then you can come out to lunch with us," Brayden said. "We're gonna go out for pizza."

"Are we?" Simmonds asked, raising an eyebrow as he cut a glance at him. "I don't remember agreeing to that. I remember you suggesting pizza and me saying that I'd rather get a burger."

"Pretty sure we agreed on pizza," Brayden said with a small shrug. "Sorry."

Claude felt a flare of amusement at his friends antics. "I would, but I can't. Sid's in town and I'm meeting him for lunch."

"Have him come with us," Voracek said without any hesitation. "It'll be fun."

Claude raised an eyebrow at him. "Really?"

"Well, maybe it won't be fun," Voracek admitted with a small shrug. "But you should invite him anyway. He's your husband and we're your best friends. Might as well start getting used to each other now."

Claude considered turning the invitation down, but then he remembered how Sidney had ambushed him with the Penguins the last time he'd been in Pittsburgh. There was no reason not to return the favor.

And at least Claude's friends had the decency to have the meeting outside of their house instead of invading their space.

* * *

"I still don't know why you married him."

The Flyers were settled around a table in the pizzeria they'd chosen for lunch. Simmonds and Schenn sat on one side of the time while Claude had taken the seat across from Simmonds. Voracek had settled into the seat at the end of the table, near Simmonds and Claude. The arrangement left the seat next to Claude and across from Schenn open.

Claude wasn't exactly surprised by the hostility in Schenn's voice. He'd known Brayden still had issues with Sidney, that he still couldn't see anything but the time Sidney and Claude had been fighting when he looked at them, but he hadn't really been expecting him to bring it up now. Now that he was thinking about it, though, he realized that he probably should have seen this coming. He probably should have realized going out to lunch with Sidney and Brayden at the same time would mean addressing this.

"I love him," Claude said, because even though this confrontation was expected he didn't really want to do it here or now. Trying to lighten the conversation, he joked, "I'm going to be spending the rest of my life with him, so I figured I might as well marry him and get the tax benefits."

His words pulled out a small laugh out of Voracek and Simmonds, but the scowl on Schenn's face deepened.

"Claude," he said, voice dark and unamused. Before Claude could respond to the clear accusation in Brayden's voice, he continued, "I just don't understand why you would get back with him. Much less why you would go further then that and marry him. I know you told me that it wasn't any of my business because I didn't see everything, but the stuff I saw was so fucking bad Claude. You were so fucking angry and when you weren't angry you were just so _sad_. Do you have any idea how many nights I spent with headphones in because I couldn't listen to you argue with him or spend one more second listening to you cry? You're one of my best friends and he treated you like shit and then you went and married him. I just can't wrap my head around why you would want to be with someone who had hurt you like that. Not just emotionally, but physically! He could have ended your career."

Claude cut a glance at Simmonds and Voracek, wanting to see how they would react to the conversation taking place. Seeing as they'd only found out about Claude's relationship after his married, they hadn't really heard of the story behind it. This was the first time they'd heard any of the details about his relationship with Sidney.

Simmonds had his elbow propped up on the table, his chin resting in his palm, and a contemplative look on his face. He was clearly listening to Brayden, but also seemed to understand that that was just one side of the story. Voracek's expression was one of concern, his lips pressed in a thin line, but not total judgement. He was obviously worried about what Brayden was saying, but had the same understanding as Simmonds that what he was hearing wasn't the entire story.

Claude was glad for it. He could mediate between Sidney and Schenn, but having to mediate between Sidney and all three of his friends would have been significantly harder.

Meeting Schenn's eyes, he said, "I don't know what to tell you, Brayden. I don't know how to convince you that this is what I want and that's he's not going to hurt me. I know that I can't just snap my fingers and expect you to forget everything you saw, okay? But I also know that if you would just give him a chance, you would realize how good he is for me and how sorry he is and how happy he makes me. I didn't forgive him overnight, okay? I made him work for it. I made him prove to me that he loved me and wasn't going to hurt me again. I don't care if you make him do it for you too, if you make him prove all of that again, but at least give him the chance to do that."

He looked over at Simmonds and Voracek again, addressing them since he knew their issues with Sidney would be completely different from Schenn's, "I know it may be hard for you guys to see past everything, but he's a good guy. He's _good_  for me and he _loves_  me. He's spent more then a decade loving me. He's sat by my bedside when I was injured or sick. Sometimes he yelled at me, but it was only because he was worried about me. Mostly he just made me chicken noodle soup even though he was busy and sat by my side while I watched shitty television and dripped _snot_ all over him. He was there for every sleepless night I had. And yeah, he always refused to let me drink hot chocolate but that's because he's like morally opposed to sweets in general even though he has the biggest sweet-tooth of anyone I know. But even when he had something going on early the next day, he would pull me into his arms and let me talk until I could fall asleep. Sometimes that meant he had to sit there while I talked about how ridiculous the science behind Back to the Future was because I didn't want to talk about the problem and sometimes that meant he had to stay up until three am convincing me that hockey was worth every bit of pain it was putting me through. He was there for every birthday and every holiday and every anniversary, okay? I'm not going to tell you there weren't rough times, because I basically spent all of 2012 hating his guts, but he's also the most important person in my life okay? And as my best friends, I need you to at least pretend to like him because I don't want to lose you guys but the years when I wasn't with Sidney were pretty much the worst years of my life."

"G," Simmonds said, cutting in before Claude could continue. He knew that he had been ranting at that point, knew that he probably would have kept ranting if someone else hadn't spoken, so he was glad for the interruption. "It's good, okay? If you're happy with him, then I can give him a chance."

"Besides, Crosby's not that bad," Voracek said. Claude turned to him, raising one eyebrow in question. "There are way worse options on that team."

"Like who?" Claude asked.

"Letang," Simmonds piped in without any hesitation.

"Malkin," Voracek added so quickly that Claude wasn't entirely sure Simmonds had finished before he started.

There was a beat before Schenn piped in, "Fleury."

Claude let out a sharp laugh. In part he was laughing because his friends choices were so very typical of them, but part of his amusement came from having spent more time with the Penguins recently.

It wasn't like he'd been around them enough to consider them friends really, but after coming for lunch at the house they'd all started spending a little more time together when Claude was in Pittsburgh. Claude had met some of the other Penguins as well by now - spent a few nights helping Sidney babysit for Duper and Kuni and tagged along when Sidney took Rust, Sheary, and Olli out for lunch - but usually it was Sidney's close friends that felt close enough to barrage in on the time Sidney and Claude had together. They didn't too it too often, but there had been a few nights where Tanger insisted that now that they'd met Claude the Crosby-Giroux's had to be apart of couples game night when Claude was around or when Claude and Sidney watched the kids for them and they all sat around talking for a while when they came to pick their respective spawns up.

If there was one thing Claude had learned from his interactions with the Penguins it was that he didn't know how any of their wives put up with their shit. He was convinced that Catherine was some kind of saint, never mind Vero who had to deal with Flower's numerous eccentricities or Anna who had to deal with the fact that her husband was friends with Ovechkin and their house frequently had a very big, very obnoxious visitor when the Capitals were in town.

"You're right," he agreed, laughing a bit. "There are definitely worst options on the Penguins."

"There are definitely better ones too though," Schenn said. Claude braced himself for Schenn to take a cheap shot at Sidney, but instead he just joked, "I mean, Hagelin's gorgeous. Have you seen that flow of his? That mane is _majestic_. His hair's so beautiful it could probably cure cancer and that's before you look at the rest of his face."

The only response Claude could formulate to that was too tip his head back and laugh as relief and amusement flooded through him. 

* * *

Claude was lifting a piece of ham and pineapple pizza to his mouth, listening to Brayden tell a story about something that'd happened when he'd stayed with Luke during their last visit to Arizona, when he saw Sidney approaching from behind Simmonds and Schenn.

"You're late," he called out, lifting his voice to speak over Schenn.

He saw all of his friends turning to see who he was talking to, Simmonds looking over his shoulder and Voracek and Schenn both turning in their chairs, before Sidney answered, "I know. I'm sorry. I hate driving in Philadelphia though."

"Pittsburgh traffic is just as bad," Claude argued.

"We have this argument every time I'm here and I'm never going to change my mind about it," Sidney said. He rounded the table, making his way to Claude's side. He bent down to press his lips against Claude's. The kiss was nothing more then a quick peck but Claude was still pleased by it. When he pulled away, Sidney greeted, "Hi."

"Hi," Claude returned, lips turning up a small smile. "Come on. Sit down. We got a vegetable pizza, but it turned out to be surprisingly good and we've already demolished it. So you're choices are ham and pineapple or chicken and peppers."

"Someone let you get pineapple on pizza?" Sidney said, nose scrunching.

"It's good," Claude insisted, because this was an argument they'd been having for almost a decade and he was never going to concede on this. Turning to the rest of the table, he said, "Right guys?"

"Nope," Voracek said with a shake of his head.

Schenn nodded his agreement as he added, "Disgusting."

"I think it's kind of good at actually," Simmonds said.

"See! The only sane person at this table agrees with me," Claude declared. He stuck his tongue out at Sidney before taking a bite out of the slice in his hand. After he'd swallowed, he licked his lips and said, "So there."

"Whatever you say," Sidney said, letting out a quiet laugh. There was a brief moment before he turned away from Claude, looking over at the other Flyers. Claude saw the way his smile grew nervous and he hunched a bit as he greeted, "Hi everyone."

Claude held his breath.

"Hey," Simmonds said, lifting one hand in greeting. "Good game against the Panthers last week."

"Hi," Voracek said, flashing a bright crooked tooth grin.

Schenn inclined his head towards him, "Hey, Sidney."

Claude let out the breath he'd been holding.

This could work, he thought. It might take a little more time for his friends to warm up to Sidney then it'd taken for Sidney's friends to warm up to him, given that Sidney's anger had been a lot more evident in 2012, but they would get there. Claude just had to be a little patient with all of them.

Considering how much he loved them - considering how calling Voracek his brother wasn't just because they looked alike, considering how Simmonds was one of Claude's closest confidants not just because he wore an A on his chest, considering how very view things made Claude laugh as loudly as Schenner could - he didn't have any problem being a little patient with them.

**Author's Note:**

> 1) Helllllo everyone! Did you all enjoy this? I see the Flyers as a generally younger (though thats not really true) and more relaxed team then the Pens? Less of them married with kids you know? So I hope my portrayal of them wasn't too off. 
> 
> 2) I'm so sorry if this chapter contains more errors then usual. I know it seems like I've always got an excuse of some kind, but I just got a new computer and the keyboard is taking some adjusting.
> 
> 3) In Claude's phone Sidney is (Sid (｡♥‿♥｡)) because 1) Claude definitely uses emojis and 2) Danny is definitely saved as "Husband (emoji blowing kisses)" or "Cheri (heart emoji, heart emoji, heart emoji)."
> 
> 4) I didn't want to rehash their first meeting the way I did in the Penguins one and at the same time I thought that Schenn would want information on the relationship especially since he saw the worst of it. 
> 
> 5) Tbh, I struggled a lot with this. It didn't come to me nearly as easily as the Penguins one did which is odd as I actually like this team a lot more? Let me know how you felt about it!


End file.
